Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Alamogordo, New Mexico, USA · 1993

United States: David Holley sentenced to 275 years for abusing boys across two dioceses

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Catholic priest, transferred between Massachusetts and New Mexico assignments

Organization

Diocese of Worcester, Servants of the Paraclete, Jemez Springs

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

Parish boys under a priest whose access was renewed by transfer after each complaint — the treatment-and-reassignment pipeline is part of the documented harm.

Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

1993-06-05 · no-contest plea and sentence

Otero County District Court, New Mexico, USA. David Holley, a priest sent to New Mexico after abuse complaints in Massachusetts, pleaded no contest to felony sex charges involving eight boys (offences 1972–74) and was sentenced in June 1993 to 275 years — at the time among the longest sentences ever imposed on a priest. He died in prison on 25 November 2008.

Documented coercion mechanisms

parish access to boys across successive assignments despite known offending

Cited record

Sources

national news agency sentencing report Eduardo Montes, 'Former Priest Gets 275 Years for Molesting Boys', Associated Press, 5 Jun. 1993 (archived copy).: Contemporaneous wire report of the plea and sentence.
national newspaper court reporting conviction history report Santa Fe New Mexican, Jul. 2023.: Independent restatement of the conviction, sentence and death in custody.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news13/1993_06_05_Montes_FormerPriest_David_Holley_10.htm Corpus classification: national-news-agency; evidentiary role: sentencing-report. SHA-256 ae53c086c2841262f54e01f0ddb36effa9009a14e38f2bb1912100165dd5c164
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/survivor-of-pedophile-priest-loses-round-in-court/article_83ab4298-1f5a-11ee-a19d-ff72bf8bd827.html Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: conviction-history-report. SHA-256 fddf4a02a5259f5aafe53a95cc9b612159e066068dbc7dc804aff39ce4fbd4a5
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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